The Light Bringer (Part 1)

As she approached town, gasping and wheezing from exhaustion pain and, she hoped not but maybe even blood loss, a prompt entered her vision:

Party Notification

Maximum distance exceeded. Your party with Idris Stone has been ended.

No time to worry about that now.

The adventurer’s at the inn should be easy enough to rouse. Somebody was always awake in the common room.

She decided not to tell them the truth - nobody would believe monsters of Chaos had broken through a Node of Order - and instead just said there was an attack and the camp adventurers needed help.

Let them sort through what they thought she meant.

Though they sent her off with a parting “This had better not be a joke” her bloody and torn clothing must have been evidence enough to convince them she was serious. Before she lost sight of the inn, men and women hastily donning armor and carrying weapons were already streaming out toward the adventurer’s camp.

Getting Gendra up in the middle of the night was more of a challenge. Eana had time to heal herself completely in between hammering on the door and calling her mentor’s name before the woman, wearing a hastily thrown on nightshirt and cloak, finally emerged.

She brushed past Eana with an annoyed, “Let’s not dawdle, then,” and, walking stick clacking against the pebbles of the path, headed toward the camp. Eana quickly moved beside her and took her other arm and the two made the best time they could given Gendra’s age.

Gendra was asking her questions but Eana was only able to reply with vague explanations and hasty ‘I don’t know’s. The rest of her was consumed by what had happened and what they might find when they reached the camp.

The imps were low level monsters, they shouldn’t be much of a threat to the adventurers but Eana had seen what they did to Idris when they caught him off guard. He was at full health when she left but in the last moments before she had run she saw that he was the only one in the camp on his feet and ready for a fight. He had proved he could handle himself, but against so many?

And how had it happened? They had made it back to the node! A bulwark against the forces of Chaos. She wasn’t that old but in her entire life she had never even heard of creatures pushing through it. Maybe Gendra though?

She brought her attention back to the old woman walking beside her and, in a pause, interjected a question, “Have you ever heard of monsters breaking into a node?”

Gendra shook her head, “Never. It doesn’t work that way.”

“But that’s what I told you. The imps broke through the node and attacked the camp,” Eana said.

Gendra sighed before replying, “I believe you wouldn’t wake me up for no reason, child, I believe something has happened at the camp. I’m not sure why you were there but I’m your mentor not your mother, but anyway, whatever happened we’ll find out the truth when we get there.”

Oh they’d find out what happened when they got there all right.

Eana suppressed her frustration. At least she had been right not to try and convince the adventurers. Maybe eighty years in Irondale wasn’t enough to see a node break, but surely some of the adventurers could make sense of it - they’d seen the world. As much as Gendra wanted to be the venerable sage of Irondale, there was a world outside and she didn’t know everything.

Before long the camp came into view. Even in the gloom of early dawn it was clear it was a wreck, but it wasn’t all bad news.

On the town facing side of the camp a mound had been formed and as Eana and Gendra approached a couple of adventurers threw something onto it. A body. And though it wasn’t yet clear to Gendra, Eana could see that the bodies were all the size of children - imps.

But as a smug and satisfying “I told you so” was beginning to form on her lips, Eana saw a larger lump next to the mound of imps. Just one body. But alongside the comparatively small imps she could see it was definitely human.

Abandoning her mentor to walk for herself, Eana ran forward. Adventurers trained every day to fight monsters. Hurt from the surprise attack, maybe, but dead? There should have been only one person in the entire camp who wasn’t up to the challenge of fighting off so many low level creatures and that was her brother.

“Order preserve me, don’t let it be Idris,” she said to herself.

But before she reached the body a light sprang up in the distance and with it a chorus of cheers and a chant, easily discernible in the relative quiet of the post battle camp.

“Light Bringer! Light Bringer”

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And then she saw him. Her brother standing tall among a small group of adventurers, Conrad’s slicked back blonde hair visible right next to him. He had his hand on Idris’ shoulder and seemed to be leading the cheer with every pump of his fist into the air. As they passed adventurers picking up downed tents or clearing away debris from the fight, each of them gave some small sign of respect as the group passed.

Just what happened while Eana was gone?

Gendra came shuffling up and tapped her on the head with her cane.

“Ouch,” Eana said.

“That one’s a corpse,” the old Healer said, “Nothing we can do about it but there may yet be healing to do.”

Eana straightened. She was right. Idris was safe and she still had a job to do.

She looked down at the body. She didn’t immediately recognize the man. He had been so viciously stabbed his throat and eyes were an absolute wreck but the clothes were the same. It was the man she had yelled to, tried to warn as she ran into the firelight earlier. One of the only ones who had been awake.

And then she recognized his face, or what was left of it. She hadn’t interacted with him much, but he was the new addition to Breakthrough who had led her out into the woods only a couple of days ago.

It felt like a lifetime, looking back. What was his name?

“Ken,” a male voice off to her right said.

A tough looking adventurer with a few cuts and bruises stood with his hands resting on the pommel of a greatsword. He watched her with tired but alert eyes.

Eana looked back at the body and then back at the man who she now recognized as Galvar, leader of Breakthrough and the man whose life she saved the same day she met Ken. What were you supposed to say to somebody who just lost a comrade? Despite spending her days healing, death was something Eana had not yet grown comfortable with.

“I didn’t know him well but…” Eana started.

“He was talking to you,” Galvar said, “When you brought the imps into the camp last night.”

This didn’t look like it was heading anywhere Eana was going to like.

“There wasn’t much time…” she started, “we were running all night… I tried to warn him. To warn everyone… I…”

Eana was floundering. If Gendra could come do the mentor thing and rescue her she’d really appreciate it. But Gendra just stood there, observing the exchange.

Galvar just kept staring at her. As the silence drew out Eana was about to fill it with something, anything before he said, “How did you do it?”

Eana looked at Gendra, but her mentor just looked back at her expectantly.

“I didn’t…” Eana started, before changing tactics, “Do you need healing?” She held up her hands ready to cast Assess on the gruff man.

But he just carried on as if she hadn’t said anything at all, “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, “A camp, on the edge of a node to be sure, but well within the edge. Suddenly attacked by monsters.”

Eana didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t like she had special knowledge of what happened. It was her first time seeing something like this too! She was just there when it happened, that was all!

Like she always was.

Tomme’s words out at the Hive came back to her - Something always goes wrong when she’s around.

“Nodes fail,” Galavar continued, “Small camps too deep in the Chaos Lands, abandoned towns or fortresses. It can happen. But here? This town? This node? No. Irondale is growing. More people, more adventurers, more everything.”

Eana was well past the point of discomfort and was thinking eagerly of escape when suddenly, a new voice rang out.

“Eana!”

It was Idris, all smiles and beaming with pride. The light of Radiance seemed to break the mood of the previous conversation as her brother came over with Conrad and the rest of the group that had congregated around them.

Conrad nodded in respect to Gendra before he began, “Your brother did good last night!” Idris smiled sheepishly at the praise from his idol in front of her.

“He didn’t just kill the most imps,” Conrad said, “He lit up the entire battlefield!”

“It’s confusion that got poor Ken here killed,” he paused a moment, glancing at Galvar, “Order preserve his soul. A fine man.”

Seeing no challenge from Galvar, Conrad continued, “And it’s confusion that got a lot of the rest of us hurt. But Idris ran right in, breaking up the groups trapping men and women in their tents, giving them time to get out and light to see what to do once they did.”

“Aye!” another man laughed, “And he’s also the reason we’ve gotta pick up half the imps with rags and shovels!”

The group erupted in good natured laughter.

“Maybe imbuing my hammer was a little overkill but…” Idris quipped back, holding a hand up as if to say ‘what can you do?’ to a round of appreciative nods and chuckles.

Eana noticed some new tears in his clothing and a few small wounds seeping blood. “You’re hurt though,” she said.

Idris looked down at himself as if he hadn’t noticed, “I suppose I took a little damage. Toughness is way up after last night.”

“Ayyyyyy!” Conrad said, slapping him on the back, “Invested a little deeper did you?”

“I couldn’t help myself,” Idris said, smiling.

As if they had had a choice! They would probably be dead if both of them hadn’t gotten extra skills.

Idris stepped forward anyway and Eana held out her hands, invoking Minor Heal.

Immediately the tone of the group shifted. Everybody quieted down and seemed suddenly different. Annoyed. And in Galvar’s case, bordering on angry.

Idris was the first to shake it off. It never bothered him for more than a moment when she healed.

“Thanks, Yahn,” he said.

“What the Light Bringer did is all well and good,” Galvar said, much louder than before and with his sword raised threateningly , “But what I want to find out is how you let the monsters in in the first place!”

Nobody seemed to care that he was shouting at her, or that he was blaming her at all.

Conrad said, voice uncharacteristically hard, “It’s a fair question.”

“What’s with the sword, guy?” Idris said, hammer now manifested loosely in one hand as he tried to stare Galvar down. When the adventurer declined even to acknowledge Idris he took a protective step toward his sister.

Galvar looked up at him then, eyes unafraid.

Idris squared his shoulders and stared right back, ready for anything.